EUGENE VOLOKH POINTS OUT NEGATIVE SPIN on some war polls:

“JUST 38 PERCENT [OF AMERICANS] SAID THE CONFLICT WAS GOING WELL ON MONDAY,” says the first paragraph of an Associated Press story, citing a Pew poll. Uh, no. As the story says about ten paragraphs down, that’s the fraction who said the conflict was going very well.

The Pew summary of the poll seems to say that 41% said it was going fairly well; there’s a bit of ambiguity in how the summary describes this, but I think that’s what they’re saying. Thus, about 80% think it’s going well — in the sense of fairly well to very well — and “[o]nly 8% went as far as to say the war effort was not going well.” Surprisingly, none of this made its way into the AP story.

For shame.